MIAMI—First Central Tower, a 17-story office building in Downtown Saint Petersburg, has traded hands. A joint venture with affiliates of Feldman Equities, Tower Realty Partners, and Second City Real Estate acquired the 250,000-square-foot office building at 360 Central Avenue. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Larry Feldman, CEO of Feldman, is spearheading leasing and redevelopment efforts. Tower will handle management responsibilities. All told, the JV plans to invest nearly $10 million in renovations and tenant improvements in the building, which is currently 50% occupied.

“As with our other downtown acquisitions, this is yet another opportunity for us to do what we do best—renovating and upgrading office buildings in order to maximize their value,” says Feldman. “Downtown St. Pete has a higher quality of life than almost any other downtown in the state. It is a truly 'walkable downtown' with hundreds of acres of dedicated city parks that run along the waterfront.”

BB&T Bank anchors the building and has naming rights. Other high-profile tenants include Abbey Adams Law, Traub Lieberman Law, and United Insurance. First Central Tower sits on the southeast corner of Central Avenue and 4th Street in the heart of Saint Petersburg's central business district,

“Within walking distance from First Central Tower, there are seven museums, over 45 restaurants, a theater for the performing arts, a major league baseball stadium and nearly a dozen marinas,” Feldman says. “Downtown St. Pete is in in the midst of an impressive revitalization with thousands of new residential units planned or under construction. We are thrilled to be a part of this re-urbanization trend.”

Capital improvement plans call for an extensive lobby renovation, upgraded tenant floor elevator lobbies, tenant corridors, and restrooms. Ownership is developing an amenity package that will include a concierge desk, luxury fitness center and conference center.

Tapping into office space trends, lower floors of the tower will be converted to prebuilt, multi-tenant spaces with common lounge areas. The lounge area will include soft seating, large flat screen TVs, iPad chairs, and free WIFI. New elevator systems and cabs are also part of the plans, as well as new air conditioning systems and new electronic door entrances and lighting in the parking garage.

First Central Tower is the third Downtown St. Petersburg acquisition for Feldman/Tower.  The group also owns City Center and Morgan Stanley Tower in Downtown Saint Petersburg. Within two years of the purchase and redevelopment of these buildings, ownership significantly increased occupancy. Specifically, Morgan Stanley Tower's occupancy rose from 65% to 96% and City Center from 44% to over 94%.

The Saint Petersburg submarket is booming with hotel, commercial, and recreational development, a large workforce, and a variety of housing options. At the same time, the Tampa Bay area is seeing plenty of action on the office front in the fourth quarter.

Tampa City Center just sold for $128 million, along with the New York Life Building. Healthcare Realty acquired a Tampa medical office building in September and in August Akerman inked one of the largest Tampa law firm office renewals of 2014 and Jackson Hewitt signed the year's largest Sarasota office lease and JP Morgan inked Tampa's largest office lease of 2014.